Kosovo and the UN

There are some who think that getting the UN involved in Iraq will make all the problems go away. This brief report from NRO gives multiple reasons to doubt that:

How the U.N. does it. The Kosovo adventure, in which NATO bombed the civilian population of Serbia in order to protect Kosovar nationalists, then handed over the province to the U.N. and NATO for "peacekeeping" — which turned out to mean allowing the Kosovars to slaughter Serbs and burn their ancient churches and monasteries, reached a low point a month ago when the U.N. forces were ordered to withdraw instead of defending Serbs against Kosovar mobs. But then it went even lower a couple of weeks ago when the peacekeepers started shooting at each other. Now, according to the BBC, the U.N.'s heroes in Kosovo are involved in sex trafficking, selling girls as young as 11 into sexual servitude. An Amnesty International report "includes harrowing testimonies of abduction, deprivation of liberty and denial of freedom of movement, torture and ill-treatment, including psychological threats, beatings and rape." No wonder the French want to turn over Iraqi prisons to the U.N.

The Mudville Gazette notes that the US press is oddly silent about problems in prisons when the UN runs them (and even if Americans are killed in them by possible terrorist sympathizers).